Betaout’s ContentCloud; Solving the hassle of managing large editorial teams

Content management in small editorial companies can be accomplished using shared documents or Google docs but the same becomes a complex scenario in large publications. Without a set process, managing and editing content becomes a hassle and time-consuming both for the editors as well the contributors. ContentCloud, the first SaaS product from the sacks of Betaout, helps you to manage large content teams with utmost ease. ContentCloud is a collaborative platform for editorial publication houses, managing the entire content production right from the ideation, content planning and delegation to distribution and analytics.

With changes in the content landscape, publishers have to deal with the quality of content, managing contributors along with many other administrative tasks. ContentCloud eases this pressure for editorial operations, with virtually no training required on the behalf of the contributors to use the product, better organizing content planning. The whole ContentCloud suite is made up of two apps; the Newsroom app and Workbench app. The former can be accessed by managing editors and Admins while the latter can be distributed to other contributors such as freelance writers and copy editors.

The Newsroom app

The Newsroom app provides admin an entire view of all the work circulating around the team. Further the Newsroom is sub divided into: Dashboard, Repository, Content Templates, Team, Analytics, Idearoom and Calendar.

Newsroom Dashboard

The dashboard gives an overview of all the tasks, their state and other attached details. And as an admin you can view, edit the assignments your team is working on, create, assign new assignments or publish ones which have been finished.

Admin can create desks to group team members having same roles. Work flow has a story path, a visual representation which shows how an assignment passes from one contributor to another. This editorial work flow eliminates the use of multiple spreadsheets in different environment. The concerned content moves from one contributor to another, as and when one is done with their part.

Instead of asking each and every person in the house to forward their work, the admin can add changes in each as per requirement. In many editorial teams, forwarding work to editors or vice versa can result in loss of valuable time. Integration of this workflow not only saves time but in the longer run will improve the performances of all contributors. Since they no longer need to create multiple windows to create or forward their work.

The overall design and accessibility of the newsroom is very simple and user friendly. The content templates provide default suggestions concerning every article before the admin moves them into the work flow.

Let’s consider a situation where as an editor you wish to create an article for your team but you have some other tasks as well and cannot guide your team through. This content template will handle your worries, jot down all your guidelines in a new template and attach this when you are about to create a new content. Your team will then create the content according to the mentioned guidelines.

One of many awesome features of ContentCloud is the Idearoom, where any contributor can suggest content ideas to the admin. Then the admin decides if the suggested idea has enough weightage to be converted into a story.

Workbench app

This is designed for contributors, where they can view the assigned work, earnings etc.

Contentcloud is the first product from Betaout, Arjun Maheshwari shares “At Betaout we are building next generation platforms and software for publishers, media companies and digital agencies.” Arjun is the co-founder and heads product and operations at Betaout. He has vast experience in content marketing, product design and team management. The other co-founders of Betaout include Nandini Rathi and Ankit Maheshwari. The trio is well supported by an enthusiastic team which has a mix of product designers, content creators, engineers, marketers and technical architects.

ContentCloud gives a free trial period of 14 days for the users with all the basic features. The users can then move on to the pro version priced at $24/user/per month. This pricing model helps publishers pay as they grow with their team.

ContentCloud was launched in mid February this year and they have received phenomenal responses so far. They already have few digital agencies using Contentcloud like IndusNet. Arjun adds “We are also coming out with the next version which is going to be simpler and will support more CMS like Drupal and Joomla. Social publishing and structure content are also planned in next iteration.”

This isn’t the first he first initiative by the Maheshwari brothers in the online publishing world. They had had a successful run with Instamedia, a digital media platform, which was sold off to a Dubai based media group. Drawing from their experience of working from Instamedia, the founders have moved on to provide more tools for content creation and management with ContentCloud.

Globally Contently offers the same services to publishers and digital agencies. However, ContentCloud focuses solely on adding tools to manage content while Contently also hosts a freelance team to offer quality content for the brands. Betaout content management system will prove handy for publishers who have in-house team to produce content but lacks a decent tool to manage their resources. A dedicated team of more than a handful of writers will find this cloud based product more than helpful.